City Game Studio News

Hello folks,

I do hope you like these posts! I intend to write one post a week to update you on the progress of City Game Studio!

Last week I worked hard to optimize City Game Studio, fix bugs and enhance the interface!

[h2]Optimization[/h2]
Buying, selling or even changing studios used to take up to a few seconds, and sometimes even crash the game. I took a look at the studio loading algorithm, and it should take one or two seconds to load the biggest studios, and almost instantaneously to load medium and small studios. When switching between two studios, no studio is displayed, which makes it go faster.

Additional optimizations include the use of ResourcePreloader. A node that I didn't know existed until recently and that is incredibly useful because it allows you to keep previously loaded game scenes rather than loading them into memory each time you use them. Very practical, mainly because it improves the stability of the game on OSX.

[h2]Interface[/h2]
Again there are some changes. New tooltips have appeared. With much more meaningful statements. In fact the interface has been revised to help new players to better understand City Game Studio.

In addition to that, there is a slight redesign of the themes, well, how they are displayed. Instead of showing the first and the last theme, the panel will show the 3 most popular themes.

In fact there are many other changes, and you can already taste them if you switch to the unstable branch of Steam. In the meantime I haven't implemented everything yet, I still have to make a panel for the annual results of your company.

What is sure, is that I am still going to add a lot of features, and still rework a lot of things!

For those who are wondering, the 1.11.0 update should be released on the anniversary of City Game Studio, that is February 21, 2023. It will be 4 years since the game is available on Steam.

On that note, have a good weekend
Xavier aka Binogure

Hello everyone!

Once in a while, I like doing a post to share the content of the upcoming version.
Well, I've been working on it for about 6 months already, let's imagine how big the update will be! Think even bigger!

[h2]What's already available on Steam's unstable branch[/h2]
[h3]In-game events[/h3]
At first, the update was supposed to contain only in-game events. Which is a rather large chunk. The first event is about theme trends. Suppose you publish a game, no matter how good it is, you get a chance to impact theme trends. Of course it impacts the sales, it doubles them for the first month, and afterwards, it's degressive.

Clearly, you might want to tap into this and release another game with the same theme. Nevertheless, you will have to use a new genre to avoid the malus that prevents you from publishing the same genre/theme combination too often or you will get a poor rating. This means working on several different genres.

Now tell me if some fans fall in love with your game. Well, they will immediately ask you to update it. You are going to get a notification that your game is popular. Depending on the difficulty you will have a certain amount of time to publish any update. For easy, it's 12 months, while for very hard, it's 5 months.

I considered adding events saying a game has a bug and you have to fix it as soon as possible. However, it's an event which can negatively impact the game experience, therefore I chose to do something else instead. For example, let's say you make a great game, we're talking about a game that has a score above 90, and you don't make a sequel, well, you're going to get a letter from your fans telling you how much they love your game and how they're desperate for a sequel! If you decide to make a sequel, and you publish it, the reaction of the fans will be based on the quality of the sequel. I won't tell you more.

[h3]Interface[/h3]
A gamer called Gonzi, a City Game Studio enthusiast, is helping me to revamp some of the game's interface. He is doing a wonderful job, I believe you are going to love it. The main interface has been revamped, and enhanced.

On top of that, notifications management has been reworked. When hovering the mouse over a notification you can view its content, it is no longer necessary to open all notifications to understand what it is about. Also, consoles' news are grouped together whenever possible.

[h2]What is not yet implemented[/h2]
I intend to add a success mechanism to the game. I'm doing this for folks who play offline or who play on platforms other than Steam.

In addition to all that, I want to rework the interface a bit to add an annual report to give a short summary of what happened in the past year.

There are other additions that I won't list here, as I'm keeping several surprises for you!
Anyway, I think it's time for me to go back to the City Game Studio and do some coding!

Have a nice weekend
Xavier aka Binogure

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Hey folks!

As usual, I'm still working on City Game Studio! The next update will carry more in-game events drawn by your fans! I hope you are as excited as I'm!

Since I'm late to release v1.11.0, here's a compensation sale: 40% off!

It's time to get City Game Studio while it's discounted!

Enjoy your holidays.
Cheers
Binogure

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I last updated City Game Studio. And yet there are still a lot of things in the backlog. I've merely been busy with other upcoming projects. As you can see, City Game Studio still has some nice updates to come and I'm going to tell you about what's changing with today's version.

When do we take a game off the market? That' s a real question, we debated it on the discord server, and we concluded that after 6 months of revenues below $1000 is the best condition to remove a game from the market.

This update, although a simple patch of v1.10.1, stabilizes the game and fixes bugs that were introduced by v1.10.0. City Game Studio has never been so stable or so available!
Thanks to olsza, City Game Studio is now available in Polish. He did an incredible job translating it, in just a few days! Thank you for this!

Wondering when v1.11.0 is coming? Well, I'm already working on it, and I'll do everything to make it available by the winter vacations. On the agenda, simplified notifications and improved in-game events. I'm trying to make City Game Studio even richer and more moddable.

That's all for today, it's time to launch City Game Studio to taste all these changes!

Binogure

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Wait for 6 months with less than 1000 sales for a game to get off the shelves
  
• Gameport: Optimize gameport release algorithm (won't get triggered every month, but only when needed)
  
• Add link to the roadmap
  
• Act as a publiher explain why start button is disabled

[h3]ModMaker[/h3]

• Can rename a game genre

[h3]i18n[/h3]

• Add support of Polish language (thanks to olsza)

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• When having tons of game, cannot open the currency panel
  
• GOTY: Create sequels/remake of GOTY doesn't make sense. You can keep create sequel/remake of the original game.
  
• Fix a silent crash when loading a savegame (rare)
  
• When acquiring a competitor, getting its games might lead to a crash (old savegame only)
  
• Game ports: Progress bar not always showing
  
• Edit console color: Wrong console case shown

Hello everyone!

A warm welcome to this v1.10.0 update! Do you remember a year ago (already), City Game Studio left early access, I felt that the game was already complete! But that' s without counting on your suggestions.

Many of you have joined the studio's discord server. Thus we discuss about the game, but also about the mods you make, the next updates, bugs, we share a lot. Anyway, I invite you to join us!

Without further ado, let's talk about this update!

[h2]Video game consoles[/h2]
I drew them in 2017. Ever since, they had remained unchanged, although in the meantime I got a bit better at drawing with Inkscape. Being impressed with the mods you made, and a bit jealous of their quality, I decided to redraw all the City Game Studio consoles. Personally, I find them beautiful, obviously the more a console will be cult, the more details it will have.

While I was playing, I realized that it was difficult to recognize the OSes, Skylight, GNU/Linux... Therefore I spent some time assigning textures to them, this way it becomes easier to distinguish these platforms. It's all about adding immersion, I hope you'll like it.

[h2]Game over[/h2]
Endgame is huge. so I decided to rework all of that. From now on, you're going to be able to go bankrupt, it depends on the difficulty, from the easiest to the hardest, it goes from a $250,000 bankrupt to a $50,000 bankrupt. So that' s to make the game less punishing when you're struggling.
The end of the game has also been changed. From now on, you will receive an email in 2025 to let you know that a special event will take place by the end of the year. This will allow you to better prepare yourself for the endgame.

[h2]Immersion[/h2]
The rivals are going to release games that are inspired by real games. Someone is going to release Metal Gear Liquid, and it's going to be a hit. Plus it's fully moddable, which means you can expect a bunch of new mods that allow you to replay the story of the video game as it really happened.

New components for the game engines have been introduced. Thus allowing you to create Open Worlds from the 80's ! I also took the time to name all the components of the consoles, no more components that are called "#1", they will now have real recognizable names.

[h2]Misc[/h2]
I spent a lot of time optimizing the game and the rendering of the game so large maps with lots of competitors could be played on low end configurations. Several menus have been optimized. I also improved the user experience by allowing for example to change the color of a console while it is being developed. Or letting you change the studios that work on the game ports, or the games of the year.


[h2]SteamDeck and Linux[/h2]
These are the most important changes for Linux users. City Game Studio now uses the Steam SDK Runtime, which means that the game should run smoothly.

In top of that, there is also support for low resolutions. Fonts will now adjust according to the resolution, allowing SteamDeck users to read all texts easily. In addition, a virtual keyboard will automatically appear when you click on a text input field (only for the SteamDeck).

[h2]Closing words[/h2]
There are quite a few other minor changes, some not so minor that I haven't presented, but either you can read about them at the bottom of this post or experience them by launching City Game Studio!

For those of you who can't wait to see what's coming next, I invite you to take a look at the roadmap. There's some heavy stuff coming up, and I think you'll really enjoy it!

In the meantime, take care of yourself, launch City Game Studio, and have fun.
Cheers !
Xavier
[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]End game[/h3]

• Add a warning panel one year beore end of the game
  
• Revamp the end panel so the keep playing button is more visible

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Custom logo: Rename the "Load" button for "Import an image"
  
• Release panel: It is now resizable
  
• Remember theme trend sorting
  
• Improve charts rendering
  
• Added an identity card for spontaneous applications messages
  
• Training: Add new filter for studioless employees
  
• Improve Dark mode rendering
  
• New gauge for contracts on the difficulty selection panel

[h3]Balancing[/h3]

• Remake: Adjust the number of point to produce according to the difficulty
  
• Publishing offer: Adjust penality to the difficulty
  
• Contracts have been re-balanced

[h3]Competitors[/h3]

• Games: Name, genre, theme, release date, number of units sold are now inspired from reality.
  
• Add new competitor: Kanomi
  
• Studio are going to get named using their name (ie: UbiHard (#01))

[h3]Game creation[/h3]

• Add a tooltip when releasing a game showing the number of genre points obtained.
  
• Do not hide "Do the game report" disable it and explain why it is disabled

[h3]Platforms[/h3]

• Rework all the platforms visuals
  
• Add proper textures for OS platform type
  
• Adjust GPU power for the Gamestation 4 (81 instead of 71)

[h3]Custom platforms[/h3]

• Edit colors while developing
  
• Give proper name to component parts

[h3]ModMaker[/h3]

• Custom platform components: Add mod validation, was broken before and never checked anything
  
• Concurrent game: Can add new concurrent game
  
• Concurrent game: Can rename existing concurrent game
  
• Custom platforms components: Add a new mandatory field 'id'.

[h3]Cheat codes[/h3]

• Can complete one/all gameports instantly
  
• Can complete one/all game-of-the-years instantly
  
• Unlock all hints

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Game of the year: Can edit studios while being in dev
  
• Game port: Can edit studios while being in dev
  
• City map: Optimizes generation and rendering
  
• When building a studio, can choose it's facade
  
• Listing studios to buy takes forever (optimization)
  
• Improve SteamDeck compatibility
  
• Improve font rendering

[h3]Game Engine[/h3]

• Add Open World component
  
• Add Sandbox environment component
  
• When acting as a publisher select the right game engine
  
• Balance Motion Control component costs
  
• Add tooltip to engine licenses to explain pros/cons

[h3]Bugfix[/h3]

• Publishing: indie studios don't take your default game engine
  
• Mortgage: Computation doesn't take into account stocks
  
• Dark mode: Custom platform component selection panel has white labels on a white background
  
• Mod & Custom-platform: Fix an issue when you first start a game on Windows then keep playing it on Mac.
  
• Studio manager not rendering properly when the studio skin is no the default one
  
• ModMaker: Saving a game while making a custom-platform with mods leads to a corrupted savegame.
  
• ModMaker: Swichting a savegame between MacOS, Windows or Linux erases the custom-platforms' cases textures.
  
• ModMaker: Competitors game mods were not validated properly by the game.
  
• ModMaker: Custom platforms components mods were not validated properly by the game.
  
• Shop Menu: Item placement might bug sometime
  
• ModMaker: Cannot load more than 50 mods
  
• ModMaker: Cannot make games using mods because some features aren't available anymore
  
• Game sales events: Game name isn't shown for third published games and remakes
  
• Game update: Cannot update competitors games when you buy them
  
• Online player count: Labels are misleading
  
• Digital store: Checkbox compatibility missing tooltip
  
• Convention: Grey out Attend button when you cannot afford attending a convention
  
• Marketing campaign: Show currency and add tooltip explaining it is too expensive
  
• Game over: When going bankrupt, don't lock the currency panel, give the player the opportunity to keep playing untill he/she reaches the hard-threshold